Of the few other issues that made it in the news was New Delhi’s increasing uneasiness with non-governmental organizations the central government alleges have been encouraging protests against nuclear power. In an opinion piece published earlier this week and headlined “India’s Civil Liberties Under Attack,” The Wall Street Journal also weighed in on this issue.

The “foreign hand” has cropped up in the rhetoric of Indian politicians who say anti-nuclear protests have interfered with the construction of two nuclear power plants in Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu. In a rare interview, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also alleged he suspected foreign NGOs were behind these protests.

Following Mr. Singh’s remarks, Indian authorities have put pressure on several NGOs they suspect have been funding the protests illegally. Late last month, cases were registered against four NGOs in Tamil Nadu on these grounds. A German national accused of involvement was deported, though he denies any wrongdoing.

More recently, the Hindustan Times reported that the government has put as many as 77 foreign NGOs on its “global watchlist,” meaning it may get a lot harder for their staff to get Indian visas.

India Real Time presents a roundup of what several Indian newspapers and commentators said on the government’s crackdown on foreign NGOs.

Writing in the Business Standard on Thursday, columnist Ajit Balakrishnansaid that NGOs in India have “travelled a long way from the time they drew in wives of doctors, lawyers and other professionals to help their less fortunate brethren.”

“Some of them are now full-fledged political interest groups,” Mr. Balakrishnan writes, referring to NGOs in general. He points out that the conflict between NGOs and the government isn’t new, nor is it unique to India, “it is a feature in many developing countries.” Citing a 1999 study on state-NGO relations in India, he says that the conflict between the Indian state and NGOs dates back to 1967, when it emerged that a prominent NGO had been funded by the C.I.A.

He notes that “many foreign missionaries and NGO officials were expelled” at the time and that this lead to a 1976 law regulating foreign funding of non-governmental organizations, the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. He says that the emergence of NGOs as political interest groups is a deviation from what NGOs workers were originally all about: “do-gooders unencumbered and untainted by the politics of government or the greed of the market.”

“This is a pity because Gandhiji, who was the original true believer in the NGO idea, believed that voluntary action was the real path to India’s development. During the freedom movement, volunteers undertook multiple programmes through organisations formed by Gandhians,” Mr. Balakrishnan writes. He ends his commentary wondering “Isn’t there a way for NGOs to return to their original role?”

Activist and political analyst Praful Bidwai wrote an opinion piece headlined “Don’t demonise dissenting voices” on Thursday’s Financial Chronicle. Referring to Mr. Singh’s interview, Mr. Bidwai argues that “the ‘foreign hand’ charge sounds surreal coming from a politician who two decades ago indiscriminately opened up the economy to international capital and trade, and who has recently batted harder than any Indian for foreign nuclear reactor manufacturers.”

“That apart, people like Singh don’t understand the dynamics of grassroots people’s struggles and what motivates them to sustain numerous marches, boat rallies and an uninterrupted relay hunger-strike since October 18,” a reference to the protests of the people in Kudankulam against the nuclear power plants there.

“Singh simply doesn’t comprehend the people’s commitment to non-violence and their determination based on high levels of information and awareness of nuclear safety problems,” Mr. Bidwai says.

He says Mr. Singh should treat the Kudankulam protesters with the “respect they deserve.”

“Above all, there must be no attempt to commission the Koodankulam reactors until the people’s concerns have been fully addressed,” Mr. Bidwai says.

Earlier in the week, in a piece for The Pioneer, Chandan Mitra, a lawmaker of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, wrote that “Manmohan Singh’s U-turn on foreign-funded NGOs has come too late to be effective.”

Mr. Mitra says that the government itself encouraged the interventions of NGOs in the country’s policy-making process by “outsourcing all such matters to jholawalas,” a term used to describe NGO workers, who are typically seen carrying sling bags, or jholas.

“Manmohan Singh is truly hoist with his own petard,” Mr. Mitra said. “The NGO industry is now too big to contain and influences levers of power that are virtually impossible to curb.”

“While his U-turn on ‘anti-development’ NGOs is welcome, howsoever late in the day and for whatever reasons it has happened, it is doubtful if the Government will be allowed to sustain this offensive” he says. He concludes by saying: “A hapless Prime Minister is stuck between a rock, namely Western nuclear reactor sellers backed by their respective Governments, and a hard place, that is the ultra-powerful domestic NGO lobby, flush with foreign funds and enjoying a dominant position within the corridors of power in Delhi.”

Some commentators were critical of Mr. Singh’s attack on foreign NGOs. Neelabh Mishraof Outlook magazine wrote that the “hypocrisy from the head of a supposedly democratic government betrays an intolerance for democratic dissent that challenges existing power structures.”

“The prime minister has always been bullish about pumping foreign corporate funds into nearly all sectors of the Indian economy,” says Mr. Mishra adding that “it is no small irony, that he is the same man who is trying to stoke the xenophobic fears of the middle class by questioning the foreign support—if any—for a popular campaign born of people’s concern about nuclear safety.”

“The intensity of the government’s vindictiveness” against certain NGOs in the anti-Kudankulam nuclear plant campaign “is of the same ilk as that which was deployed, for all to see, against the members of Anna Hazare’s team who launched the Lokpal agitation,” Mr. Mishra writes.